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Topic: Medium 10 frame swarm trap (Read 3404 times)

I wanted to have a swarm trap with medium frames and was concerned a medium 5 frame trap would be too small. Not wanting to have a wide box, but a narrow, tall box that was one piece, I came up with this. I'll let you know if I catch a swarm with it.

I just take a deep nuc and add medium frames. The bees don't mind, and they like the extra space (I think). If you notice the swarm in the first week or so, they usually don't build too much extra comb that you need to cut away.

But why don't you just use a 5 frame medium nuc box and secure it over another 5 frame medium nuc box? I don't see what the advantage is to have a piece of equipment that you can only use to catch swarms. Swarm seasons come and go, and I often need the equipment for the rest of the season.

My larger traps have deeps in the top and about 5-6" of space below. With using foundationless, they have plenty of time to build out the frames before I need to worry about them building below. You could probably get by with just the top frames, though your time to collect would be shorter than mine with the deeps. Worse case, they build comb from the bottom of the frames and you can band it into empty frames.

I did make a few double decker swarm traps, but these are an experiment that I'm trying. They are about 600 miles from me and won't be checked until next spring. They are 5 mediums on the bottom and 5 deeps on top. I used 1" strips of plywood for the frame rests and glued/stapled them in place. by turn the frames slightly, I could get them past the upper frame rails, straighten them out and put them on the lower rests. This won't work for you unless you put a larger space between the 2 sets. The deep depth on my upper set allowed for turning the mediums before dropping them in place.

rob...

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I don't have any deeps, so I figured I would make them double stacked. I also thought about strapping two 5 frame nucs on top of each other, but liked the transportability of a one piece unit. I think I will go with moving my cleats up and just use the top frames as I will be able to get to them before they build too much comb. They would weigh less too. Leave it to a CAD designer to over-engineer something. :-D Thanks for the input.

I also use a 5 frame deep nucs with medium frames for swarm traps. The bees usually the fill the box with comb and I cut the comb below the frames and put it in another medium frame. This way I end up with 8 to 10 medium frames of brood and bees and in a nother 2 weeks the cut frames are filled with comb. This also leaves more space for when the scouts measure the size of the box. It helps to use mostly foundationless frames that have been used before. The comb around the edge helps to keep them straight.Jim

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